“In this land one can go for a walk and find a huge iguana, a papaya tree covered with dozens of large fruits, an enormous anthill, marijuana plants, poppies or a corpse.” This is the raw, harshly poetic world of Jennifer Clement’s new novel Prayers for the Stolen. For three weeks now I’ve struggled with this…
2013 was my year of books. Indeed just a year ago I maintained the mistaken belief that fiction was just a delightful indulgence. Over eighty novels later the calendar year has come to a close, and more than one study has touted the innumerable benefits of reading fiction. If fiction can genuinely alter our understanding of the world beyond…
Our protagonists are Ciba and Saverio, a narcissistic award-winning author, and a middle-class discontented Satanist. The tale is one of arrogance and decadence and the comic tragedy of our time. The author is Niccolo Ammaniti and the book is Let The Games Begin: crude and chaotic and infinitely funny. Saverio is an incompetent slave to…
When Tampa eventually came out this year, it wasn’t without controversy- the media went bananas, some bookshops refused to stock it. Of course this just got the book more press and made it all the more desirable. But was the buzz well deserved? Is TAMPA truly shocking? Brilliant? Insightful? Well. It’s a graphic account of…
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s Rabbit Back Literature Society has all the darkness and delicacy of a winter night, its motifs sombre and deceptive against a backdrop of Finnish winter and folklore. It’s warped, and it’s brilliant. The story, revolving around the bookish Community of Rabbit Back, explores the surprising history of the town’s celebrated Literature Society, expertly…
Whimsies & Words 